Noto Phil - Cobalt Squadron

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For my cousins in both generations.
May the Force be with you.

N OTHING,ROSE thought, is as peaceful as the limitless blue of hyperspace.

As soon as they jumped to lightspeed, she took off her safety straps. She made her way down the long access ladder past the dimly lit bomb racks to the gunners ball turret, where her older sister, Paige, rode at the bottom of the heavy bomber ship.

Rose liked to join Paige in the lower turret when they were traveling in hyperspace. She often felt that the lightspeed travel during a mission was the only time she and Paige really had to themselves. Even though they were usually sent on the same assignments, it was rare that they were alone together.

Nice to see you, Rose, Paige said as Rose settled alongside her sister. The crystal cage of the gunners ball turret wasnt designed for more than one person to sit in it at a time, so Rose cozied up against Paige behind the laser cannon, practically sitting in her sisters lap.

I cant stay long, Rose answered. I need to keep an eye on the little monster I invented. Ive got to make sure the power baffler is working the way its supposed to.

You sure itll hide us? Its hard to miss a StarFortress.

Its not supposed to hide us. It doesnt make us invisible. It just stops our energy trace from showing up on a sector scan. The baffler cant stop anyone from seeing us, but it might stop them from noticing us. And you know what happens if anyone notices us.

Well, if they do, thats why Im sitting here behind a laser cannon, Paige said.

Just for a little while, sitting safe in the clear cocoon of the gunners turret with her older sister as they sailed through the suspended reality of lightspeed, Rose ought to have felt absolutely no fear.

Since the Tico sisters had fled the First Orders ruin of their home planet in the Otomok system and found their way to the Resistance base on DQar, there had always been something to worry about. From dark reports of First Order clampdowns in other star systems, to damaged ships that had to be rewired and armed just in case, to every now and then a wounded pilots being hastily carried past on the way to the medbay, on DQar there were always reminders of reasons to be afraid. In hyperspace, there was nothing, and no reason to be afraid.

Really? Rose asked herself. What about the past? What about the future?

Even in these moments of calm, the fear was always there.

Rose remembered what had happened to her homeworld. The fear wouldnt go away until the First Order was completely destroyed. She didnt believe a word of the party line about bringing civilization to the far reaches of the galaxy. Shed seen what they did to the Otomok system: the ice sheets littered with the debris of the First Orders constant weapons testing and oily smoke rising from the poisoned settlements. At some point, other people were going to witness the chaotic horror that Rose and Paige had experienced. Rose was determined to put an end to it. She and her sister had joined General Leia Organas Resistance movement with the full intention of bringing down the First Order.

In the quiet of hyperspace, Rose could wad her fear into a ball and temporarily jam it into a corner of her brain where she didnt have to think about it for an hour or so. But it was still there.

When Rose looked down through the clear crystal panes of the gunners ball turret, she couldnt see anything but depthless mottled blue. But when she looked up, leaning back against Paiges shoulder in the swiveling seat suspended in the clear globe, she could see the massive hulk of the well-used heavy bomber Hammer towering ominously overhead.

Youre breathing hard, Paige said.

Thats because Ive been getting some exercise, Rose said breezily. That long climb past the bomb racks is as good as a workout.

That was true. But it hid the fact that Rose was scared. And Rose didnt want any of the crew to notice it, least of all Paige, who worried like crazy about Rose. They were the only family they had nowthe only people they knew whod made it out of the Otomok system.

Paige and Roses homeworld, Hays Minor, and its sister planet, Hays Major, had spun just at the edge of what could be considered habitable in the Otomok system. Cold and dark, Hays Minor had been so far from the sun that its inhabitants had lived in perpetual twilight.

Now Paige mostly crewed Hammers guns, but she was trained as a pilot. Back home in Otomok shed flown a stripped-down version of this MG-100 StarFortress bomber, blasting away the dark polar ice of Hays Minor for the Central Ridge Mining Company so the work crews could get at the surface of the planet. Paiges skill meant that now she could sometimes swap roles with Finch, Hammers pilot, or take over for him on long flights so he could get some sleep.

Rose couldnt remember a time when she and her sister hadnt shared a love of the sky. But then the First Order had filled the skies of Hays Minor with so much dust and filth that the Tico family could no longer see the stars from the observation dome of their living pod. Paige and Roses desperate parents had managed to smuggle their children out of Otomok as refugees. Wearing filtered goggles because their eyes hadnt yet adjusted to the bright sunlight of an inner planet, with no clothes except those theyd traveled in, when Rose and Paige had met General Leia Organa for the first time, Paige had told her, Our planets being murdered.

Leia had answered seriously, I understand.

Flying for the Resistance, Rose could see the stars again. But she couldnt ever go home.

I dont like climbing the bomb racks when theyre full, Paige said sympathetically. Creepy, dont you think? All those black shining shells, every one of them full of explosives.

Definitely creepy. Even now, when theyre not full of bombs.

Instead, they were full of probe droids equipped for a quick and secretive spy mission.

Normally, Hammer operated as part of the Cobalt Squadron of Resistance heavy bombers. But this flight to the Atterra system was supposed to be a quiet fact-finding trip, and Hammer was on its own for once. The ships bomb bays were filled not with destructive magno-charge explosives but with self-propelled probe droids that were too small to be detected on most routine scanners.

General Leia Organa wanted to find out the truth about what the First Order was doing to local settlements in Atterra. There were frightening rumors that traders whod normally had no trouble getting in and out of the system were finding it blockaded. Armed ships were preventing access to Atterras regular space routes. If anyone slipped past the guard ships, they were attacked by automatic cannons mounted on the Atterra systems many asteroids. The cannons were equipped with visual sensors that fired at anything that went near them. And at least one report mentioned deadly patrols of TIE fighters roaming Atterras asteroid belt and the orbits of the Atterra systems twin inhabited planets.